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The article compares the religion and the modernization of Japan and Turkey. Religious traditionalism in both Japan and Turkey had to be seriously undermined before effective modernization could get under way. Religious or semi-religious secular movements were necessary to channel motivation into rational this-wordly action contributing to modernization. The differences between Turkey and Japan seem to he due to the fact that in Japan the requisite charismatic revolution found its basis in one aspect of the traditional religious heritage whereas in Turkey only a modem secular nationalism effectively challenged the traditional religious structure. In both cases, the crucial role of religious seems to be in relation to innovations in the political structure and not directly in relation to the economic structure.